41 Quotes by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Pero le aclaro, señor, que yo mato con katana, y no como ustedes, que matan con el poder, con el dinero, hasta con el pretexto de hacer un favor. Es cierto que no derraman sangre y sus víctimas siguen viviendo; pero así y todo son muertos, sombras de vivos. Si medimos los alcances del delito, es muy difícil fijar quién es más criminal, yo o ustedes.

Isn't there someone kind enough to come strangle me in my sleep?

...we could see the parapet of Ryougoku Bridge, arching above the waves that flickered in the faint mid-autumn twilight and against the sky, as though an immense black Chinese ink stroke had been brushed across it. The silhouettes of the traffic, horses and carriages soon faded into the vaporous mist, and now all that could be seen were the dots of reddish light from the passengers' lanterns, rapidly passing to and fro in the darkness like small winter cherries.

I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.

I may wear the skin of an urbane sophisticate, but in this manuscript I invite you to strip it off and laugh at my stupidity.

He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills.

People used to say that on moonless nights Her Ladyship's broad-skirted scarlet trousers would glide eerily along the outdoor corridor, never touching the floor.

He was said to have survived starvation by eating human flesh, after which he had the strength to tear out the antlers of a living stag with his bare hands.

En el hombre conviven dos sentimientos opuestos. No hay nadie, por ejemplo, que ante la desgracia del prójimo, no sienta compasión. Pero si esa misma persona consigue superar esa desgracia ya no nos emociona mayormente. Exagerando, nos tienta a hacerla caer de nuevo en su anterior estado. Y sin darnos cuenta sentimos cierta hostilidad hacia ella.